Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(61)

Wyatt nodded. “Pete and Laurie are eighteen, but I get what you’re saying. Have you met them?”

Jax peered around the corner at the entrance to the warehouse. “Sure.”

“Yeah? What’s Pete’s last name? His story?” Wyatt asked.

Jax slowly turned to eye his friend. “Why would I know?”

“Exactly.” Wyatt cocked his gun and straightened his shoulders.

Jesus. Not Wyatt, too. “I’m sorry. Am I supposed to sit down with everybody in our little montage of a community and share? Bond?” Fuck. Jax was doing his best to keep everyone alive. He didn’t have time to get to know more than five hundred people.

Wyatt lifted a Super Bowl–sized shoulder. “Why not?”

A clatter echoed inside the medium sized metal building.

Jax froze. “We go in fast and hard.”

“Copy that.”

Jax jogged around the building, bunched, and kicked the door in square. It flew open, and he ran, gun sweeping out. A man in a ripped gray suit turned, his fingers wrapped in the long blond hair of a severed head, his mouth covered in blood. He chewed and lifted the head to his mouth again.

Holy fuck. Bile rippled up Jax’s throat, and he swallowed ruthlessly. Lifting his gun, he fired three shots between the eyes.

The Ripper fell back into several barrels, sending them scattering. More barrels scattered around the nearly empty metal building, and water dripped somewhere in the back.

Wyatt leaned over at his side, puking onto the concrete floor.

Shit. The blond was Laurie. Her headless corpse lay at an odd angle, half hidden by more barrels.

Jax shut down and jogged toward the nightmarish scene. He kicked the Ripper, who rolled over onto his back, eyes unseeing and dead. Blood coated the ground, adding the smell of copper to the stench of unwashed flesh and death. Turning, Jax scouted the one-level building. Mainly empty except for the barrels; only one room stood off to the side. Probably what used to be an office.

He waited for Wyatt to gain control and then started for the office. Before he reached the door, another man, this one wearing a torn and filthy baseball uniform, stumbled out dragging Pete. Blood dripped from a gaping hole in Pete’s neck, where his jugular had been bitten away. A white bone, the spine, stuck out at an odd angle.

“Jesus,” Wyatt muttered, taking aim and hitting the Ripper center mass in a kill shot. “Two Rippers? Working together?”

“Probably just temporarily with two victims.” Jax had seen wild, crazed Rippers as well as methodical, organized Rippers. “I’d give my left arm for a shrink or one of those FBI profilers from television.” He needed to know more about what he was dealing with.

Lightning lit up the night outside the open doorway.

Wyatt sighed. “We burning them?”

Jax rubbed his aching chest. “Did either of the kids have family?”

“No more than the rest of us.”

“Then we burn them here.” Carrying the bloody carcasses through the violent weather and then all the way back to the group didn’t make sense. “I’d rather nobody else saw them like this anyway.”

Wyatt stalked across the bloody ground and hefted Pete in one big hand and the Ripper in the other, dragging them both to the other bodies. “The Rippers were probably decent people at one point, too.”

Jax lifted an eyebrow. Wyatt had a way of seeing beyond the obvious, beyond the division between friend and enemy, into reality. “I’m glad you’re here,” Jax said.

Wyatt grimaced at the pile of death, his full lips set in a hard line. “I’m not.”

Fair enough. Jax reached for a small canister of lighter fluid to spray on the bodies. Then he stood back. “You’re the preacher.”

Wyatt sighed. “At some point, you’re gonna have to make a speech or give a eulogy, you know?”

“Not with you around.” Jax folded his hands and shoved down the urge to gag at the smell. “I lead with action, not words.”

“You need both.” Wyatt lowered his head. “God, please accept these four victims into your arms, and maybe send us some help while you’re at it. Amen.”

Jax swallowed. “Amen.” Was help coming? He needed to finish his discussion with Lynne before returning that message to Greg Lake.

Wyatt fumbled with a match.

“I’ve got it.” Jax held out a hand. Wyatt faltered and then dropped the match into his palm. Jax leaned down and struck the match on his boot, igniting fire, which he dropped on the piles. Laurie’s hair ignited first. He let out a low growl and then turned around. “Scout around and make sure there’s nothing here to take back.”

Wyatt went for the office, while Jax looked in the empty barrels and tried to ignore the stench of burning flesh. Finally, they met up at the door, both empty-handed.

Smoke billowed out. “Let’s take cover the hell away from here,” Jax muttered, leading the way into the storm and around several warehouses, most with open doors. Finally, he reached the overhang of a boat storage facility that looked out into the dark vastness of what used to be the city of Los Angeles. He hunkered down. “The rain should pass in a few minutes.”

Wyatt slid to sit beside him on the concrete, shaking out his wet baseball cap. “Maybe we should send larger scouting parties out.”